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Changes to Publishing in Canvas

Changes to Content Publishing in Canvas

This fall, there will be a small visual change, but a BIG functional change to how content in Canvas works. Instructure has implemented a new way to publish individual course content, and in doing so, has fulfilled the number one requested feature to date. While it was always necessary to publish a course for it to be visible to students, faculty can now show or hide individual content. The terminology for content visible to students is “published”, and content that is hidden is “unpublished”. Each can be toggled as one sees fit (with some minor exceptions we’ll broach later in the post). Let’s see what the new interface will look like.

It’s Actually Pretty Easy Being Green

Throughout the course, all Pages, Modules, Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes will now have a new icon in either their header area or to their right within a list view. This icon will be of a “cloud” with a “check-mark” in it, and will be either grey to mark it as unpublished, or green for published.

In the above screen shot, all of the contents within the module are published. If you wanted to hide the Page entitled “Module Workflow”, all you’d need to do would be to click on the green “cloud” icon on the right. If you wanted to hide the entire module from students, you could click on the green icon on the upper right of the course header.

Publish As You Go

If you’d like to make things available to students immediately, it’s still easy to publish individual content as you’re creating it. At the header of every tool editor, you’ll see a button to enable a Page, Quiz, Discussion or Assignment to be published. Below you’ll see a closer view of what this button will look like once your item has been published and made available to students.

One caveat: once students have begun to interact with a tool, it cannot be unpublished. Examples include: a discussion post with replies, a quiz that has been started, or an assignment with submitted work.

Bulk Publish and Unpublish

Within modules, there is a new feature that will allow you to Publish All or Unpublish All content within your modules.

As of right now, this is only available for the content with modules. This is geared for the beginning of the term, so that you can either create all your content, place it within the modules, and then publish it all at once. Or, if your content has been created, and copied over from another course, say – so the module’s contents is already published – you can go ahead and Unpublish All, and then release at your own discretion.

As always, if you have any questions about publishing content or want to delve deeper into Canvas in general, don’t hesitate to contact ITG by emailing itg@emerson.edu or by calling 617-824-8090.